UTSA will travel to Oregon with Rice and Texas A&M

The UTSA Roadrunners are scheduled to take a circuitous route to Oregon for the NCAA baseball tournament.

In travel arranged and paid for by the NCAA, UTSA will leave San Antonio at 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning, traveling by bus to College Station.

That’s when the trip gets really interesting.

The tournament-bound Roadrunners, Texas A&M Aggies and Rice Owls all will board a charter flight out of College Station’s Easterwood Airport en route to Oregon.

A UTSA spokesman said the flight will arrive in Eugene on Wednesday afternoon, and then teams will take separate charter buses to their respective hotels.

“We’re all chartering a flight together, which is really uncommon, or out of the ordinary, I think,” UTSA coach Jason Marshall said after practice on Tuesday. “But we’ll do what they tell us to do … Any way we can get to Corvallis, we’ll get there.”

Both the University of Oregon (in Eugene) and Oregon State (in Corvallis) are hosting four-team regionals.

Both regionals open on Friday.

Rice will be in Eugene, opening in the early game against San Francisco.

Texas A&M and UTSA are in Corvallis.

A&M opens with Cal Santa Barbara in the afternoon game, followed by UTSA and the host Oregon State Beavers.

“When they give us a chance to play on Friday, we’ll tee it up and play and we’ll be anxious to do so,” Marshall said.

UTSA’s return travel plans are uncertain, depending on what happens in the tournament.

“The NCAA pays for team travel in the postseason,” a UTSA spokesman said. “The NCAA explores all travel options, including commercial flights, and selects the safest and most cost-effective plan.”